Ecommerce Order Management Workflow- From Placement to Fulfillment and Everything in Between

Contalog

Ecommerce order management process is the heart of any online retail business which contributes towards achieving 100% customer satisfaction.

From global leaders like Amazon, eBay to regional dominators like Alibaba, Flipkart, there is a thumb rule for ecommerce order management process flow. Here it is.

This is the how the ecommerce order fulfillment process goes, no matter how big or small the player is. However, when we dig into the the schema of the backend operations involved, there are a lot more to discuss.

The key lies in order management system used to process orders. An order management system makes a difference and pave way for order management process improvement.

Order management systems like Contalog can help you take care of everything that a backend operational team would require in order to be accurate, productive and quick in fulfilling orders.

Contalog acts as the backend expert which creates a platform for the entire ecommerce order fulfillment staffs at various levels to collaborate and perform as a unit. Order fulfillment process involves several steps but begins with getting to know the orders.

Order Viewing

The backend team must have a good view of the incoming orders. Contalog’s backend dashboard provides a quick view on the total number of orders placed, and displays orders in segments based on their statuses.

Automated Stock Allocation

Order fulfillment process in eCommerce begins with automation. The orders flowing through eCommerce store will be in ‘Finalized’ status by default. Then, the stock allocation happens. Contalog automates the stock allocation based on quantities of products in orders.

As and when the sock allocations happen, the ‘Stock in Hand’ and ‘Stock Committed’ values get updated in real-time leaving no room for error in available stock level.

Order Fulfillment Progress Status

In order to initiate a fulfillment effort, staffs need to know about the status of the order which means, whether they are paid and ready to be picked and packed, or just need to be shipped and so on.

‘Finalized’ orders are those which need fulfillment effort to be initiated right from stock allocation, picking, packing, shipping, invoicing, generating shipping labels etc. In case of ecommerce, as a customer pays and places an order himself, the orders, by default, are in the ‘Finalized’ status.

‘Fulfilled’ orders are those which are shipped and received by customers. Cancelled orders own the status ‘Void’. ‘Void’ status has to be performed manually as cancellation of orders can be done only by the admin panel users.

Shipping Labels and Invoice Creation

Order Actions demote the actions performed in the course of fulfillment. Creating shipping labels and invoices are the two main order actions that Contalog ecommerce order management system offers. A fulfillment team staff can create shipping labels and generate invoice using the backend options for order processing.

In case of stock unavailability or any other reasons, partial shipments can be created. In such scenarios, specific products in an order or specific quantities of a product in an order can be shipped and partial invoice can be created for the products shipped. Order editing is a manual option to perform changes to an order, if needed.

Manual Order Creation

Besides processing orders placed by customers, you can create order on behalf of your customers as well using Contalog ecommerce order management software. If you care creating an order for a new customer, you can add customer details as and when you create an order for them.

Once an order is created manually, it has to be finalized manually as well to get into the loop of order fulfillment like stock allocation, picking, packing etc.,

More for eCommerce from Contalog

Contalog value adds with provisions to sync more of our ecommerce selling channels. Your Amazon and eBay seller accounts can be synchronized with Contalog to ditch out the dependency of managing sales and order processes separately for each sales channels.

The standard schema of fulfillment operations of eCommerce stores is similar to the one we have elaborated. There may be a few differentiations based on the stocking approach which eCommerce business owners follow like drop shipping.

Contalog brings to the table a comprehensive platform that can manage multiple sales wings of a business in a centralized interface. For those into or planning to venture into multi-channel online commerce, Contalog can help a great deal.

About The Author

Meena

I am Meena, a tech enthusiast. I love to explore the latest inventions and innovations that rock the tech world. I write about them at length with the intent to spread the knowledge far and wide to all known and unknown.